Crunch Hype

Instant messaging service Telegram has amassed 400 million monthly active users, it said today, up from 300 million active users the seven-year-old service disclosed to the SEC last October. The service — founded by Pavel Durov, who also created Russian social networking site VK — said it adds about 1.5 million users each day and […]

Singapore-based Igloo, formerly known as Axinan, has raised $8.2 million as the insurance-tech startup looks to broaden its foothold in half a dozen Southeast Asian markets and Australia. InVent, a corporate venture capital arm of telecommunications firm Intouch Holdings, led Igloo’s extended Series A round, the startup told TechCrunch. Existing investors Openspace Ventures, a venture […]

Trying to raise money for a startup is never a walk in the park. Still, there are good times, there are bad times, and there is right now, a moment of uncertainty unlike anything that most of us have experienced in our lifetimes. Even if a startup breezed through a fundraise before the world was […]

Gogoro, the Taiwanese company known for its electric scooters, announced a new ebike brand that will go on sale in the United States first. Details about the ebike, called Eeyo, haven’t been released yet, but it is noteworthy because it marks Gogoro’s first product launch in the U.S. Eeyo be available for purchase in the […]

On Thursday, the House passed the newest federal stimulus package aimed at providing financial relief for businesses and institutions hit hard by the COVID-19 crisis. The bill lingered in the Senate for two weeks of debates, with Republicans seeking to pass a less comprehensive version of the legislation and Democrats working to weave other funding […]

Prompted by Jeff Bezos’s plans to test all Amazon employees for the virus that causes COVID-19, we wondered whether employers can mandate employee testing, regardless of symptoms. The issue pits public safety against personal privacy, but limited testing availability has rendered the question somewhat moot. But as the World Health Organization and U.S. Centers for […]

Tesla has added Hiromichi Mizuno as a new member to its board of directors and audit committee — the former chief investment officer of Japan’s $1.5 trillion pension fund and a longtime opponent of common market practices like short selling. With Mizuno’s appointment the Tesla board now has 10 members, including Oracle founder, chairman and […]

Is “Too Hot to Handle” the dumbest show on Netflix … or the most diabolically brilliant? The reality TV series brings a group of twentysomethings together on a secluded tropical retreat, then — after a brief getting-to-know-you period — warns them that anything even coming close to sex will result in a reduction of the […]

Representatives from the government and the utility managing the power of Los Angeles are proposing a sweeping infrastructure package worth roughly $150 billion centered on the broad electrification of transportation and industry. Drafted by the Los Angeles-based public-private Transportation Electrification Partnership, a collaboration between the Office of Mayor Eric Garcetti, Southern California Edison, the Los […]

Leaked images obtained by TechCrunch reveal that Google considered and designed a feature that would let people donate money to websites to help support news publishers, bloggers and musicians. But Google scrapped the idea and chose not to build out the product, despite these kinds of businesses and creators often struggling to earn revenue. Last […]

The FCC has finally gotten around to updating its 15-year-old orbital debris rules, adding new requirements and streamlining the approval process. With hundreds of satellites going up every year into increasingly crowded orbits, these rules are more important than ever. In stating the necessity for mitigating the accumulation of orbital debris, the FCC noted that […]

U.S. companies rely on Mexican manufacturers for goods ranging from automotive and aerospace parts, to avocados and other produce, to electronics and furniture. But the trucking system that transports these things across the border relies on an inefficient mix of paper, phone calls, faxes and too many stakeholders who drive up costs. These snarls congesting […]

Fresh off of a successful earnings report, Snap announced today that it was looking to raise $750 million in a new debt offering. This upcoming offering will consist of $750 million in convertible senior notes that will mature May 1, 2025. It will be a private placement to qualified institutional buyers and Snap is looking […]

Digits, a fintech startup hailing from the same team that built and sold Crashlytics to Twitter, is officially launching today after two years of development. It’s also announcing a $22 million Series B round of funding led by GV, as it makes its public debut. While the company had been fairly quiet about product details […]

With another major round of COVID-19 federal financial assistance around the corner, two lawmakers in states with previously booming cannabis businesses are asking for the federal government to bring the industry in from the cold. The legislation, proposed by Reps. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) and Ed Perlmutter (D-CO), would make cannabis companies eligible for the Paycheck […]

Instacart’s aggressive hiring spree is continuing due to COVID-19 shelter in place orders. Today, the company announced it is adding 250,000 more shoppers to meet consumer demand, and to help the company return to “one-hour and same-day delivery,” according to a statement. Along with the hiring announcement, Instacart is implementing a slew of new policies, […]

Mahendra Ramsinghani Contributor Share on Twitter Mahendra Ramsinghani founded Secure Octane Investments, which includes Demisto, CyberGRX and 16 other infrastructure and cybersecurity companies. Mahendra authored "The Business of Venture Capital" and "Startup Boards." More posts by this contributor How to make a deal with a VC at a tech conference With Alibaba, Pivotal and Lightbend […]

Virgin Orbit has secured an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its ventilator, which the small satellite launch company designed and prototyped within the past few weeks in response to growing need for ventilator hardware to address the most severe cases of COVID-19 infection. Virgin Orbit anticipates deliveries […]

A German research institute that’s involved in developing a COVID-19 contacts tracing app with the backing of the national government has released some new details about the work which suggests the app is being designed as more of a ‘one-stop shop’ to manage coronavirus impacts at an individual level, rather than having a sole function […]

Founders have always faced big challenges, but they pale in the face of the coronavirus pandemic. Moving your business forward will require new thinking, new tools and new opportunities along with tried-and-true essentials. We’ve got you covered on all fronts. Case in point — catching investor attention in this climate will require a pitch par […]

HealthJoy, a platform that helps employees get the most use out of their benefits, launched its revamped user interface and technology stack today. The startup told TechCrunch that usage has doubled during the COVID-19 pandemic. While the new platform, called HealthJoy 2.0, has been in the works for two years, it is now helping the […]

Neighborhood social network Nextdoor and Walmart are teaming up today to launch a new “Neighbors Helping Neighbors” program that will make it easier for vulnerable community members to get assistance from neighbors who are already planning a trip to Walmart. The new in-app feature will allow Nextdoor users to post to groups associated with their […]

Apple plans to fix an iPhone email security bug, Magic Leap cuts 1,000 staffers and Google is requiring all advertisers to identify themselves. Here’s your Daily Crunch for April 23, 2020. 1. A new iPhone email security bug may let hackers steal private data According to security firm ZecOps, the bug is in the iPhone’s […]

Polestar, the electric performance brand spun out of Volvo, said the base price of its first all-electric vehicle will be $59,900 in the United States, lower than originally targeted. The 2021 Polestar 2, an electric performance fastback, is the first EV to come out of a brand that was relaunched three years ago. Polestar, once a high-performance […]

The first version of Apple and Google’s jointly developed, cross-platform contact tracing API should be available to developers as of next week, according to a conversation between Apple CEO Tim Cook and European Commission for internal market Thierry Breton. Bretton shared a photo from his office which shows him having a video conversation with Cook, […]

At a time where all of the news seems to point toward negative economic activity, Synergy Research released a report today that data center M&A activity made a strong showing this quarter, already surpassing 2019 levels. The surge was mostly related to the $8.4 billion Interxion acquisition by Digital Realty, which Synergy says was the […]

In a blog post today, Google’s Director of Product Management, Ads Integrity. John Canfield, announced that the company will be extending its identity verification policy for all advertisers. Introduced in 2018, the feature required political advertisers to go through a verify their identity, which was then displayed as part of the ad itself. The process […]

Despite COVID-19, China's broad shuttering and an aged bull market deep, Europe's venture capital activity in Q1 2020 was mostly fine.

One of Colorado’s fastest-growing cannabis companies has a new look. Medicine Man Technologies (MMT) is announcing a new brand, Schwazze, which will be an overarching parent company for MMT and its collection of brands. The publicly-traded company is now listed under the OTC ticker symbol “SHWZ.” Schwazze refers to a cultivation process, and the company’s […]

The race to win the ubiquitous neighborhood stores is on in India. A day after Facebook invested $5.7 billion in Reliance Jio Platforms to serve tens of millions of neighborhood stores in the country, the world’s largest e-commerce firm has launched “Local Shops on Amazon.” The program will help customers discover products from local shops in […]

Miro is a company in the right place at the right time. The makers of a digital whiteboard are seeing usage surge right now as businesses move from the workplace and physical whiteboards. Today, the company announced a hefty $50 million Series B. Iconiq Capital led the round with help from Accel and a slew […]

TechCrunch recently asked a number of venture capitalists who invest in fintech to share their thoughts about the state of the industry; they pulled us into the present moment, drawing from their portfolio companies, deal flow and inboxes. Today, we asked them to look into the future. Although it looks like the COVID-19 pandemic has […]

Today SingleOps, an Atlanta-based software startup, announced that it has raised $6 million in new capital. The startup’s service is built to support companies that deal with outdoor work like landscaping, tree care and lawn maintenance. It’s an example of the vertical SaaS trend that has come to the fore in recent years, with startups […]

SFC (formerly known as Startup Funding Club – a UK a seed stage investor – has received £10 million from British Business Investments (the commercial subsidiary of the British Business Bank), to deploy a total of £40 million across more than 100 early-stage startups in the UK. SFC intends to deploy the commitment in over […]

NBCUniversal is introducing a new way to incorporate commerce into the viewing and reading experience, which it calls NBCUniversal Checkout. The new product is part of the company’s One Platform ad offering. As demonstrated for me yesterday, it allows the readers of articles and viewers of videos on NBCUniversal properties to click on a featured product, […]

The new “normal” offers new opportunities. That’s the thinking behind a new pre-seed funding program from Heartcore Capital . The European consumer-focused VC usually invests in startups at seed and Series A, but recognising that many potential founders are in lockdown and with time of their hands, is moving to the top of the funnel […]

On the heels of Amazon getting approval from the competition authority to proceed with an investment leading a $575 million round for food delivery startup Deliveroo in the UK, two of Deliveroo’s biggest rivals got their own £6.2 billion merger approved, and they have subsequently picked up an extra $756 million to come out fighting. Today, […]

OneDegree, the Hong Kong-based insurance technology startup, launched its first product today, a line of medical plans for pets called Pawfect Care. The company will introduce other products, including cyber insurance and medical coverage for humans, all available completely online, over the next 12 months. Founded in 2016, OneDegree raised $30 million in Series A […]

Ford today took the wraps off an electric Mustang prototype. Called Mustang Cobra Jet 1,400, it carries Ford’s long tradition of drag racing the Mustang. But for the first time, a quiet electric power plant is spinning the slicks instead of a roaring V8. This one-off prototype is said to hit mid-eight second quarter-mile times […]

Challenger bank Bunq has revamped joint accounts to give you more flexibility. If you’re a premium users (ie not just a Bunq Travel customer), you can create a sub-account with someone else who’s not a premium user for €2.99 per month. Bunq also lets you create multiple sub-accounts, meaning that you can have an account […]

French startup Doctolib is sharing some metrics on its video consultation feature. While the startup first started as a way to help doctors manage appointments and let them accept online appointments, the company has been taking advantage of its huge community of health professionals to add video consultations on top of that. Since the start […]

While some U.S. investors might have taken comfort from China’s rebound, we still find ourselves in the early innings of this period of uncertainty.

AWS today launched Amazon AppFlow, a new integration service that makes it easier for developers to transfer data between AWS and SaaS applications like Google Analytics, Marketo, Salesforce, ServiceNow, Slack, Snowflake and Zendesk. Like similar services, including Microsoft Azure’s Power Automate, for example, developers can trigger these flows based on specific events, at pre-set times […]

According to a new WSJ report and confirmed subsequently by TechCrunch, Bill Gurley, among the most famous of Silicon Valley’s venture capitalists, is stepping way from Benchmark, the early-stage venture firm that was founded in 1995 and which Gurley joined soon after, in 1999. He will not be investing the firm’s 10th venture fund, which […]

A massive database storing millions of credit card transactions has been secured after spending close to three weeks exposed publicly to the internet. The database belongs to Paay, a card payments processor based in New York. Like other payment processors, the company verifies payments on behalf of selling merchants, like online stores and other businesses, […]

Since first uploading a YouTube teaser video of its tech five years ago, Magic Leap’s presence in the augmented reality industry has been controversial. Some have lauded the team’s ambitions, while others I’ve talked to say the company’s posturing has dissuaded investors from taking chances on other AR hardware startups, which has hampered the industry’s […]

China-based electric car startup Byton has furloughed about half of the 450 employees who work at its North American headquarters in Santa Clara, Calif., putting the release date of the automaker’s upcoming M-Byte vehicle into question. Byton told TechCrunch the furloughs were the result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The intention is to bring these furloughed […]

Ever since it first started rolling out, 5G skeptics have attempted to link the next-gen cellular technology to all manner of health issues. Most recently, it’s become an easy scapegoat for the global COVID-19 pandemic, given the rapid rise of both. Conspiracy theories have gained such a foothold that vigilantes have taken matters into their […]

Google’s data centers run 24/7 and suck up a ton of energy — so it’s in both the company’s and the planet’s interest to make them do so as efficiently as possible. One new method has the facilities keeping an eye on the weather so they know when the best times are to switch to […]

SpaceX has launched another big batch of Starlink satellites, the low Earth orbit spacecraft that will provide connectivity for its globe-spanning high-bandwidth broadband internet network. This brings the total number of Starlink satellites on orbit to 422, though the company plans to de-orbit two of those (the first two prototypes launched) shortly. Already, SpaceX is […]